CW Issue 007 PRINT v5 Lo-Res - Flipbook - Page 27
COW•MAGDA KOWALCZYK
MAGDA KOWALCZYK•COW
MILKING IT
Images: BTS photos by assistant producer
Tessa Morgan, who is also pictured opposite with
headphones. Thanks to Halcyon Pictures.
By Darek Kuźma
B
IFA-nominated DP Magda Kowalczyk
becomes our guide through the
everyday life of a British dairy cow and
her calf, in director Andrea Arnold’s affecting
and acclaimed documentary Cow, which
premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 8
July 2021.
The ordinariness of cows, the sheer obviousness
of their service to the world of humans, makes a
documentary attempting to observe their grace and
the challenges of their lives a tough balancing act.
How to sympathise with animals that seem to exist
for the benefit of their milk and meat? Yet Arnold’s
film is both a realistic view of the unending process
of producing milk and all that is attached, including
breeding, dehorning, grazing, growing old, and an
emphatic glimpse into dairy cows’ mundane life cycle
that may not be as different from ours as we tend to
think.
Arnold had originally wanted to make a
documentary revolving around an animal for years,
and considered making one about a chicken, but
ultimately kept coming back to a cow. As it was going
to take to take several years to shoot, the director’s
trusted collaborator, DP Robbie Ryan ISC BSC, could
not commit to the project. A casting call was ordered
and the producers decided to entrust the project to
Polish-born cinematographer Magda Kowalczyk.
“My mom was a documentary filmmaker and
editor, and I never imagined myself doing anything
else myself,” says Kowalczyk. “I was born and raised
in Warsaw and didn’t know much about cows, but
I loved Andrea’s work and I knew I’d be able to
commit to the project, to give her what she wanted,
and that I’d be able to support her.”
The shoot began after particular prep for the film.
This involved choosing a dairy farm in Kent, selecting
leading cows (Luma and her calf Malu), and
26 JANUARY 2022 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD
establishing a flexible routine of returning for a few
days a month, especially when something interesting
was about to happen, such as the insemination
process. And, needless to say, it was an adventure.
“When you make a documentary with humans, it
takes time to earn their trust, learn their ways. It’s very
different with cows. They are shy, but also curious,
interested in new things, new people. And they don’t
notice a film camera, at least not as something that
looks at them.”
There were times Kowalczyk felt the cows
behaved like humans would. “When you see a
cow giving birth and then taking care of her calf,
checking its dung, teaching it how to walk or socialise
with other cows, you observe a maternal bond and
see natural instincts kick in. I always believed this is
human, conditioned by culture, society, but it’s not,”
claims Kowalczyk. “Luma and others got used to
my presence, I felt they liked me to be around them.
But at times they clearly wanted to be left alone.
Like when they were separated from their calves – I
remember they seemed mad, ashamed, alone.”
Which is something that Arnold wanted to
emphasize: that cows are not only milking machines,
but living beings that deserve our respect for what
they are forced to do to make our lives that little bit
better. Kowalczyk tried to show it with her images.
“I tried to be a documentary DP and at the same
time stay connected to the visual style Robbie and
Andrea perfected over the years. I only adjusted it
slightly to depict the world of cows, like panning from
Luma’s face to what she sees instead of doing a POV
shot. The film is a creative collaboration and it’s my
interpretation of Andrea’s vision.”
Kowalczyk reminisces that the style nevertheless
altered throughout the shoot. “Initially, I tried to
frame the humans from waist down, or with their
heads just outside the frame, or through angles that
seemed natural
for how a cow
would see
them. I didn’t
want them to be
characters.
“At some
point, however,
Andrea said we had to make the farm workers more
identifiable, as they seemed too aggressive, that my
way would work in a short, but in a feature it makes
people disconnected. She was right, the footage
showed we needed them to be visible.”
The foreseeable unpredictability of the shoot
was something Kowalczyk took into consideration
when picking a Sony FS7 camera for the
production.
“We tested 16mm film and it looked
magnificent, but shooting on celluloid was too
risky considering the location. So I chose to rent
a reliable digital camera that wouldn’t be costly
if something happened on the farm. Cows are
big beasts that are not aware of their size. They
wouldn’t harm a fly, but are easily scared. I saw one
time how a terrified cow lead others into a sort of
stampede. There’s always time to run, but, what if
the camera was left in their path?”
All day exteriors and interiors were shot in 4K
on the Sony FS7, with night scenes shot using ARRI
Alexa Mini, with a solid set of tried-and-tested Zeiss
lenses: Zeiss
Planar 50mm
and 85mm, Zeiss
Distagon 25mm
and 35mm, Zeiss
Jena Flektogon
20mm, Zeiss 135mm.
“Andrea said she wanted to see the world
as much through a cow’s eyes as much as it was
technically possible,” explains Kowalczyk. “I crave
old photographic lenses, the way they slightly distort
images and diffuse light unevenly. There’s something
unpredictable in them. They’re perfect for an
imperfect view of the world.”
Having such equipment on the set of a realistic
documentary, Kowalczyk did not need large light
sources, yet she used some to give Cow a more
filmic look.
“For day scenes I had three 650W Redhead
and several small 160LEDs. Back then LED light
was very expensive and not as renowned,” says
Kowalczyk. “For night scenes I trusted Alexa, but I
still needed some light for the exteriors on a field. I
used 2kW Blondes, 1kW Fresnels and 20x20 LED
panels.” When the footage finally reached colourist
Ian Pinder at Golden Wolf it proved more than
enough.
Cow took four years to shoot and was set to be
released in 2020, but we all know what happened
that year. So Kowalczyk’s journey will extend into
2022. But she does not mind, she is proud of the
work.
“I was 15 when I saw my first Andrea Arnold
film, and I was mesmerised. Now I’m a part of
her film. I mean, wow! Sure, at some point I had
nightmares about not being able to capture all of
the interesting stuff at the farm, but when I saw the
first edit, I knew we were fine.”
Kowalczyk’s BIFA nomination for Cow thus
seems to be only the beginning of many other
journeys to come.
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